Christine feehan - Dark Slayer 20

She blinked, her eyes going warm, then sultry. You think of me as a woman, then, not just a warrior.

How could I ever separate the two? Your traits make up the whole of who you are. His voice roughened with emotion. He searched in his mind for words to describe her, the way he saw her, but he could find little to express the way he felt, the beauty and light she brought to his soul, so empty and hollow and gutted by Xavier's evil.

Tell me. I need to know.

Words are not enough to explain a miracle, but I will do my best. You are tough, strong and skilled. Gentle. Kind. Compassionate. Fierce and formidable, with a will of iron. Sexy. Soft. Beautiful. Mysterious. Gentle and magnificent. You are all of these things. A miracle to me. A gift beyond any price.

Her lashes fluttered as she veiled her expression. The temptation of her mouth, the curve and soft texture, was too much to resist. It was a dream, nothing else, and it was his dream, the first one he had dared in a long time-since the betrayal of his sister. He hesitated, suddenly afraid. Could Xavier be tricking him? Was he now betraying the one woman who held his heart and soul?

No!

The warm honey poured over him again, stirring his body. His heart jumped, beat for a moment out of tune with the heartbeat of the earth. Pain slammed into him from every direction, taking his breath, his ability to think, his very sanity. He thought he screamed when he'd been so stoic, but he had concentrated more than he knew on the natural rhythm of the earth, allowing the heartbeat to keep the pain at a distance so he could tolerate it. For a moment he couldn't breathe, couldn't think. It was impossible to live with such pain.

Do not leave me! Her voice was panicked.

He'd never heard Ivory sound anything but cool and under control. The note of alarm in her voice steadied him. He realized he was drifting away from the scent and feel of her, distancing himself to prevent Xavier from discovering her, but there was need in her that he'd never seen before. She'd been injured. He remembered that much. Horribly injured. He didn't feel as if he had much strength left, but what he had, he would gladly give to her.

Ivory?

I am here, Razvan, with you. In you. I hold you tight, my heart to yours, my soul to yours. Do not leave me. Give me your word. No matter how terrible it gets, give me your word of honor that you will stay with me.

If you need me.

I will always need you.

He could barely conceive of the pure honesty in her voice. Could she really have need of him? He would never, no matter how difficult the circumstances, turn away from her should she need him. I will be with you always, Ivory, if it is within my power.

Her voice came again, close, gentle, that warmth that seeped into the coldest marrow of his bones and heated from the inside out. Rest, then, fel ku kuuluaak sivam belso-beloved. Gain strength, but hold strong and endure for me.

It was no small task she asked of him. He allowed the pain to consume him, to wash over and into him, to become part of him. It was the only way to survive. His will-and acceptance. He would survive for her.

He woke again after an indeterminate amount of time had passed. Like all Carpathians, he knew the difference between night and day; even deep beneath the earth he knew it was dark and the moon was full and high. Sound had awoken him. Summoned him. Voices raised in the ancient tongue-the healing chant rising and falling with both male and female voices lifting toward the night sky, burrowing deep into the richness of the soil to find his shattered body to surround him and provide strength and healing power.

He felt the presence of a male, white-hot energy surging through him, burning together parts that had been torn apart. Excruciating pain burst through his body and he heard his own cry, the sound strangled and anguished. Ivory echoed his cry, her voice resonating with suffering. He tried to move, to get to her, and at once gentle hands stopped him.

You cannot move. Stay very still or you will undo what small repairs have been made.

Ivory? Razvan recognized the healer's voice. Save her first. I heard her distress.

She is merged with you, holding you to this earth, and she feels what you feel. Do not move, just let yourself sink into her, hold tight to her.

Gregori came back into his own body swaying with weariness. Small droplets of blood beaded on his skin and he actually slumped against Mikhail, unable to hold himself upright after the healing session. «How is it they live?» he asked the prince. «It is impossible, yet they survive. Each night I come to them, I expect to find them dead, yet they still live. How is it they endure? No one can live through such pain, yet this is not the first time for either to suffer such torment.» He opened his eyes and looked at his friend. «It is difficult for me to feel and see the absolute suffering the two of them endure.»

Mikhail laid his hand gently on the healer's shoulder. No healer could be of Gregori's caliber without being empathic. Each time he shed his body and joined the couple to speed the healing of those terrible mortal wounds, he felt what they did.

«You are saving their lives.»

Gregori shook his head. «I am aiding the swiftness of recovery, Mikhail. There is a difference. They have wills such as I have never seen in any Carpathian, male or female, in all my years of healing. Believe me, it is only their sheer will keeping them alive, not me.»

Mikhail's voice was comforting. «Take my blood to revive you and then go home to Savannah and allow her to soothe you. Night after night, subjecting yourself to their agony is wearing on you. You cannot continue without some respite.»

«As long as they continue, so will I.» Gregori looked up at his father-in-law, his face lined with weariness. «His body is actually knitting itself back together again. Three of the six spear wounds should have killed him, along with the sheer volume of blood loss, but somehow the earth itself is putting them back together.»

«Along with your blood and care.»

Gregori shook his head. «I do not understand what I am seeing when I attempt to heal them. It is as if most of their bodies are encased in mineral, hardened and impassable, while I have access only to a single part each night. Some nights it is the same part. I can enter an arm or leg and concentrate there, but the rest of their systems are blocked off to me.»

«I don't understand.»

Gregori frowned and rubbed at his chin. «Usually when I heal, I can enter an entire body and flow through it with ease, moving through every part, but when I enter Razvan or Ivory, only a small part of their bodies are accessible. It changes with each night.»

«What could cause that?» Mikhail wondered.

«I don't know, but I'd like to find out. The soil has always aided healing. And when we're wounded and tired it rejuvenates us, but we've always used a healing spirit to go inside our bodies and repair from the inside out. Something is repairing their bodies, something other than me. It seems to be a slow process, but it is keeping them both alive. I think Ivory could have been saved, but she chose to bind her fate with Razvan's. She is fully merged with him and wherever he is encased, so is she.»

«A type of magic? Something Xavier might have come up with?» Mikhail ventured.

Gregori shook his head. «There is no taint of evil. Rather it smells ancient to me, as if they have awoken something from long ago, before our time, and it works to save them. And you know me, I don't trust things we've never encountered. We are a people who have seen much over time.»

«True,» Mikhail said, «but not all.»

«I need to understand how things work. I would like to speak with Syndil. She has been cleansing the earth of toxins for us and is very connected to the soil. I have never seen this, and I don't understand how they are surviving, let alone healing. Nor do I have an explanation for how their bodies are segmented. Perhaps she can explain it to me.»